{"id":850,"date":"2026-02-20T18:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=850"},"modified":"2026-02-20T18:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:29:17","slug":"can-ai-be-transcendental-subjects-a-husserlian-perspective","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=850","title":{"rendered":"Can AI Be Transcendental Subjects? A Husserlian Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Nov. 2024<\/em> \u2013 Invited speaker for \u201cAI and Consciousness\u201d workshop, James M. Houston Centre for Humanity &amp; the Common Good, Green College, Vancouver, BC<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Abstract: <\/em>In my talk, I built on Johannes Jaeger\u2019s recent (2024) argument that current LLMs do not meet the criteria for agency identified by enactive cognitive science. I argued that, in addition to relying on enactivist descriptions of the structure of agency such as Jaeger\u2019s, we must also use a phenomenological approach in order to identify the criteria that allow us to recognize conscious agency in any given entity. I then argued that transcendental subjectivity (and, in particular, the fundamental structure of time consciousness that Husserl calls \u201cthe living present\u201d) is the condition for the possibility of conscious agency. I concluded with an argument that tried to show that current AI models are not the kinds of entities that could instantiate that structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=827#conference_presentations\" style=\"background-color:#e9dfd4c7\"><strong>back to Talks<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nov. 2024 \u2013 Invited speaker for \u201cAI and Consciousness\u201d workshop, James M. Houston Centre for Humanity &amp; the Common Good, Green College, Vancouver, BC Abstract: In my talk, I built on Johannes Jaeger\u2019s recent (2024) argument that current LLMs do not meet the criteria for agency identified by enactive cognitive science. I argued that, in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-850","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/850\/revisions\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}